Albania

Albania

Membership status

Candidate country

Background

Albania – along with other Western Balkans countries – was identified as a potential candidate for EU membership during the Thessaloniki European Council summit in June 2003.

In 2009, Albania submitted its formal application for EU membership. In its Opinion on Albania's application (in 2010), the Commission assessed that before accession negotiations could be formally opened, Albania still had to achieve a necessary degree of compliance with the membership criteria and in particular to meet the 12 key priorities identified in the Opinion.

In October 2012, Commission recommended that Albania be granted EU candidate status, subject to completion of key measures in the areas of judicial and public administration reform and revision of the parliamentary rules of procedures.

In June 2014, Albania was awarded candidate status by the EU.

In April 2018, the Commission issued an unconditional recommendation to open accession negotiations. In its June 2018 Conclusions, the Council set out the path towards opening accession negotiations in June 2019, depending on progress made in key areas such as the judiciary, fight against corruption and organised crime, intelligence services and public administration. The Commission reiterated the recommendation to open accession talks in the Enlargement Package adopted in May 2019. In its June 2019 Conclusions, the Council took good note of the Commission's recommendation. In March 2020 the members of the European Council endorsed the General Affairs Council’s decision to open accession negotiations with Albania and in July 2020 the draft negotiating framework were presented to the Member States.